THE proposal for the army to play a prominent role in the recruitment of 20,000 police personnel for Karachi is problematic in several respects.

While the decision to recruit more personnel and have the army train them was taken in the apex committee’s meeting in May, the plan to involve the military in their recruitment as well as the proposal to induct 2,000 ex-servicemen in the force is a recent development.

It was disclosed by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali in his news conference on Monday in which he dilated upon the decisions taken a day earlier in a meeting to review law and order in the city.

In Karachi’s present circumstances, the input of the military can certainly be useful to some extent, and has already proven so. And of course merit-based recruitment is key to a police force focused on fighting crime rather than pleasing its political masters. Inducting more police personnel for a city of Karachi’s size is also much needed.

However, it is important that they be locally recruited. The Sindh Rangers, a federal force whose officers are from the army, has been repeatedly accused of a certain lack of ‘local’ sensitivity, a provocative element in the city’s already combustible ethnic mix.

It is also a fact that some exceedingly ruthless and corrupt law-enforcement officials thrive and survive only because of their close links with the security establishment.

All things considered, even though the provincial government by its own actions has created the space for federal powers to interfere in its workings, the process of recruitment must remain its responsibility, one that it should carry out with more competence and honesty than it has traditionally shown in this respect.

There has been of late a qualitative change for the better in the upper echelons of the Karachi police since the removal of the previous police chief. It would serve the city far better for the provincial government and senior police officials to assume their responsibilities without their ‘minders’ in khaki.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2016